Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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501. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the number of pre-school places operating in the years 2020 to date in 2025, according to size such as <25, 25-49, 50-74, 75-99 and 100+. [52930/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Data on Early Learning and Care and School-Age Childcare service providers is captured through administrative data on the Early Years Platform (EYP). The below table provides a summary of the number of service providers by size based on the number of children registered in the service for any Department funded programme (ECCE, NCS and CCSP)*. The data are captured at 1 June for each of the years 2020-2025.

No. of Service Providers by size as of 1 June for each year.

**Data not available due to the impact of Covid-19

While the above administrative data is provided from the EYP, the Early Learning and Childcare data website provides an overview of publicly available data on the sector. The ‘Service providers overview’ section of the website provides information on the number of services registered for Department funded programmes, service location, organisation type which can be explored using the accompanying filter (including size).

Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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502. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the status of a dedicated state agency for early learning and childcare, which would undertake functions currently carried out by Pobal Early Years, the 30 City and County Childcare Committees as well as operational functions currently undertaken by her Department. [52976/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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In March 2022 Government accepted the findings of the independent Review of the Early Learning and Childcare Operating Model in Ireland that a dedicated state agency is the optimal operating model for the early learning and childcare sector for the years ahead. It is envisaged that this agency will undertake the functions currently carried out by Pobal Early Years (including Better Start), the City/County Childcare Committees, as well as operational functions currently undertaken by the DCDE.

Significant progress has been made in advancing the programme of work for the planning and design of the agency. The Department has commenced a phase of analysis, planning, and consultation, and is committed to ongoing and extensive engagement with sectoral stakeholders throughout the programme of reform. This phase of work comprises a detailed design of a new agency and a evidence-based cost projection for the establishment and annual operational costs of a new agency. The Department continues to engage with independent consultants Indecon who have been contracted to undertake the initial phase of research and analysis to inform the design of the agency.

Initial consultation events regarding the vision, mission and values of the agency with a wide range of stakeholders have taken place. A report has been compiled from these initial consultations and the report has been circulated to the participating stakeholders and uploaded to the dedicated agency web page.

Consultation events also took place in May/June 2024 with the focus on function mapping across the current operating model. A further consultation session also took place in October 2024 regarding the mapping of the workforce across the current operating model. During these consultation events Indecon provided updates on the progress and timelines for the completion of the work on the planning and design of the agency.

It is anticipated that this phase will be concluded in late 2025 with the production of a consolidated report on the design of the agency. A detailed costing exercise is also underway and is scheduled to conclude in late 2025 also. The work will culminate in a costed agency design, including the remit, organisational structure and service delivery model, which will be presented to Government for approval.

Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)
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503. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the number of early years and crèche services that have been withdrawn from the core funding scheme in each of the past five years, by county; and the specific measures her Department is taking to prevent further withdrawals and protect parents from fee increases. [52979/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Core Funding began in September 2022 and therefore figures are only available for the past three years.

In the interest of clarity, transparency and consistent reporting, I have defined a service that left Core Funding as any service that had a gap between contracts for Core Funding of 4 or more weeks. There are a number of reasons that a service might fall into this definition, for example a service could have withdrawn from the scheme, been removed from the scheme for breach or rules, or experienced a delay in re-contracting following a change of circumstance application or between programme years. Many services have left and later re-joined the scheme. There may be a small number of services who left the scheme and subsequently closed at a later date and are not captured in the figures below.

As of 5 August 2025, there were 4,807 services listed as being open on the Early Years Platform, of which 141 (3%) had left Core Funding at one point over the past 3 years and continue to operate outside of this scheme. A further 336 services (7%) had left Core Funding at one point over the past 3 years but later rejoined and are currently signed up to the third year of the scheme. The overwhelming majority of services, 4,056 or 84%, have continued to participate in Core Funding from the date on which they first signed up for the scheme.

The fourth year of Core Funding began on 1 September 2025 and as of 2 October, 4,424 services have signed up to the fourth year of Core Funding, an uptake rate of 91%. This is more than 200 additional services signed up than at this point in time last year. Every year there are a number of services who sign up to Core Funding in the weeks following the commencement of the programme year. Officials in the Department will be working to update these figures, reflecting an accurate assessment regarding participation in the fourth year of the scheme.

The tables below provide a breakdown of the services that left Core Funding in each programme year by county division, divided into services that left a programme year and were participating in the scheme as of 5 August 2025 and services that left a programme year and were not participating as of 5 August 2025. Some services may have left and rejoined multiple times across the three years, and therefore the figures cannot be summed across programme years from the breakdown below.

I am aware that between 5 and 31 August 2025, two additional services reached the end of their notice period and withdrew from Core Funding Year 3 – one in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown and one in Kildare.

Core Funding has been designed with maximum participation of providers in mind as reflected in the year-on-year growth of investment in the Scheme (rising from €259 million in year 1 to over €390 million in year 4). This represents an increase of over 50% in Core Funding in three years.

The 2025/2026 allocation represents an increase of over €60 million (over 18%) on the previous programme year, which will facilitate:

• Support for providers in meeting the costs of increases in minimum pay rates as a result of newly negotiated Employment Regulation Orders by the independent Joint Labour Committee;
• Increased funding for early learning and care capacity offered to ensure Partner Services can keep pace with rising costs without needing to increase fees charged to parents;
• An increase to the minimum amount of funding a centre-based service will receive, increasing to €14,400 per year from the current level of €14,000;
• A reduction in the maximum allocation for a service’s capacity to €450,000 to best spread a limited budget across the entire sector; and
• Funding to support capacity growth of 3.5% across the sector.

• access to wider financial supports where a service is experiencing financial difficulty or has concerns about their viability;
• access to enhanced support for services caring for concentrated numbers of children facing disadvantage through Equal Start; and
• opportunities to apply for capital grants through the Department.

Participation in Core Funding is optional, but it remains open to all Tulsa registered providers, subject to their agreement to the terms and conditions of the Core Funding Agreement. It is a matter for providers to decide whether they wish to sign up to Core Funding and benefit from the significant financial supports it offers to providers and the certainty it gives to parents through the associated fee management measures.

Core Funding remains open, and these withdrawn services may reapply during the year and as can be seen above more services have returned than have not returned.

The Department is always exploring the potential for further changes to enhance Core Funding. Any changes for Year 5 – starting in September 2026 – would be based on the operation of year 4 of the Scheme starting last month as well as stakeholder input. The Department will continue to engage with the sector and continue to develop the scheme so that it can continue to see the high uptake levels it has seen this year, and indeed since it was launched in 2022.

Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)
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504. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the number of early years and crèche facilities operating in Cork city and county in each of the past ten years; the net change in services over that period; and the actions being taken to address the decline in provision in Cork compared with the reported national increase. [52980/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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In line with the requirements of the Child Care Act 1991 (Early Years Services) Regulations, 2016, the Child Care Act, 1991 (Early Year Services) (Registration of School Age Services) Regulations 2018 and the Child Care Act 1991 (Early Years Services) (Childminding Services) Regulations 2024, those wishing to operate an early years service (whether a preschool, school age or childminding service) are required to register with Tusla.

All data collected by Tusla, including information relating to registrations is collated and verified on a rolling basis. It must be noted that, Childminding Services Regulations only came into effect in September 2024 with a statutory transition period of three years ending in September 2027. As such, registration is not mandatory until the end of this transition period.

On this basis, the requested data is available below showing a breakdown of the number of registered services by service type in County Cork, for the period December 2016 – December 2024, with an additional column detailing the year-on-year variance in respect of the number of services registered. As the register was only established in 2016 it is not possible to provide data on services for 2015. It is also not possible to provide a disaggregated breakdown of services registered within the City and County as all data in respect of early years service registrations is collated on a county by county basis only.

Improving access to quality and affordable Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare is a key priority of Government.

Early learning and childcare capacity is increasing. Data from the Annual Early Years Sector Profile 2023/24 shows that the estimated number of enrolments increased by approximately 19% from the 2021/22 programme year. Core Funding application data shows that between Year 1 and Year 3 of the scheme, annual place hours increased by over 15%. However, it appears that demand for early learning and childcare remains higher than available supply in certain parts of the country, particularly for younger children.

A Forward Planning and Delivery Unit in this Department is pursuing an ambitious programme of work. The unit is developing a forward planning model which will be central to the Department's plans to achieve the policy goals set out in the Programme for Government to build an affordable, high-quality, accessible early childhood education and care system, with State-led facilities adding capacity.

This Department continues to support the ongoing development and resourcing of Core Funding which has given rise to a significant expansion of places since the scheme was first introduced. Core Funding, which is in its fourth programme year, funds services based on the number of places available.

This provides stability to services, and reduces the risk associated with opening a new service or expanding an already existing service. For the previous programme year, the allocation for Core Funding allowed for a 6% increase in capacity. Additional funding was secured in Budget 2025 to facilitate a further 3.5% increase from September 2025.

The Government is also supporting the expansion of capacity through capital funding. The Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme is designed to increase capacity. Core Funding Partner services could apply for capital funding to physically extend their premises or to construct or purchase new premises.

This scheme provides €25 million to expand full-day care places for 1 to 3-year-olds. It is expected that up to 1,500 places will be delivered by these projects. Of this number, almost 100 community places will be delivered in Cork.

The Programme for Government commits for the first time to provide capital investment to build or purchase state-owned early learning and childcare facilities, to create additional capacity in areas where unmet need exists. State ownership of facilities is a very substantial and significant development and offers the potential for much greater scope to influence the nature and volume of provision available and to ensure better alignment with estimated demand. This work will be supported through capital investment under the revised National Development Plan.

The approach more widely to ensuring appropriate levels of early learning and childcare supply is being considered by my Department and will be further articulated in the context of the Action Plan to build an affordable, high-quality, accessible early childhood education and care system that Government has committed to publishing.